Angular
by Chudley Cannon
Summary: [Wicked] ElphabaGlinda in a series of POVs.
1. Chapter 1

**Angular** by Chudley Cannon

Disclaimer: "Wicked" is owned by Gregory Maguire and not me.

Author's notes: Bookverse. Elphaba/Glinda in a series of POVs. The two in this section are Boq followed by Nessarose.

I am, I know, still delaying the next chapter of "The Week of Ill Repute", but this was already written for the most part and I figured it'd be nice to point out that I hadn't died or anything. So there you are, I'm not dead, and neither is The Week of Ill Repute.

* * *

**Part I**

**1. No Strangers in Unrequited Love: Boq**

Preposterously, she turned me into a gibbering, drooling, ridiculous fool. I was a clever sort, I was sure of it, and I'd gotten into Shiz as testament to such brilliance. I was a farmer, but a smart farmer, one that could cite water levels and irrigation techniques in my sleep. I had lots of thoughts, profound ones, I felt. But they all went to shit the moment I saw her, and then my thoughts dissolved into "blonde beautiful smells good" territory.

So very often I found speaking to her quite daunting, as if I had just learned the art of stringing words together to create sentences and the skill of it was still sketchy at best. "Lovely day, Miss Galinda," I said to her as we passed in the triangular park outside of Crage Hall. She was with Elphie and her Ama and they stopped to converse. It was so absurd, the way I felt as though I was being knocked over every time I made eye contact with her, but it wasn't my fault; her eyes were unfairly pretty, so light and large, the lashes so thick and long. She guarded herself from the sun with a lovely white and pink-edged parasol.

Elphie, and I wondered if perhaps this was in conjunction with her irregular skin color, threw caution to the wind as far as the sun went and was an uncovered, long stick of green, ambling along beside Miss Galinda, hands shoved into the hip pockets of her gray frock. She was whistling in an unladylike manner and the juxtaposition of the two girls made me smile. "Hiya Elphie," I said and she stopped whistling for a moment to utter, "Hello there," before the whistle started up again.

"Master Boq, you look well," said Miss Galinda politely, an out-and-out lie I was sure for my hair was a ridiculous mess. She was only a few inches taller than me, I noted. I smiled.

"Thank you, as do you. And Elphie—"

"Oh, I look the same as always," snickered Elphie. "I'm no joiner of the well-lookers as of now, merely an onlooker of the riotous affairs of young love." She mimed a swoon and I laughed nervously.

"Really, Miss Elphaba," said Miss Galinda, her eyes flashing. "Do you strive to make every conceivable situation uncomfortable?"

"Only for specified parties," said Elphie defensively. "I'll wander away, let courting run its course." She did so.

Miss Galinda let out a breath, rolling her eyes. "Really, she's a menace," she muttered, seemingly forgetting propriety. "Always scheming to ruin my life, it would seem." She looked at me as if just noticing my presence and then blushed.

"Oh, that isn't so, Miss Galinda," I said. I looked at Elphie and then revealed in confidence, "She really thinks a great deal of you. She told me so."

Miss Galinda flicked her eyes toward me, her lashes lowered, suddenly looking contemplative. I was rather startled and stepped back as a demonstration of just how. I had never seen her in thought! My heart began beating very quickly, as though it were galloping excitedly toward a heart attack or something, just as it always did when there was a new piece of information about Miss Galinda presented before me, waiting to be filed away. I swallowed.

"A great deal?" she asked, her expression so enigmatic and beautiful I felt as though death would be the only alternative to kissing her at that very moment. "What brings this on?"

"Yes!" I cried rather loudly when I did not die. I glanced over at Elphie, who had wandered far out of earshot and was currently engaging in what appeared to be a staring contest with one of the park trees. Strange girl! A friend, I considered, and I didn't like betraying a friend's trust, but this was different. Miss Galinda wanted information, the sort she could only get from me, and Elphie had to know that I would oblige her on this.

I cleared my throat. "She's quite fond of you, Miss Galinda." And who could blame her?

"She told you this?" Miss Galinda twirled her parasol with gratuitous flourish. How had I never seen her so deep in thought? The way her eyes were no longer just beautiful and clear, but intense and meditative as well? Queerest phenomenon, the way they had looked so blank and shallow before, a lovely basin of callous capriciousness. So Elphie was right about her, about the fact that she _did_ think. Entrancing.

"Yes," I said eagerly, urged on by my self-interested desire to have Miss Galinda think highly of me. I blurted, "In fact, she did say that she loved you."

I remembered it clearly, back in the beginning of my friendship with Elphie. I had found her coarse and was angry with her for she claimed to love Miss Galinda, yet criticized her. I had been annoyed with her at the time and had even voiced it to Elphie, but in speaking with her more and more about Miss Galinda, it became remarkably clear to me that she was hard on her _because_ she loved her and expected more out of her. I could only sit back and marvel at the fondness that Elphie obviously had for the roomie that she didn't even get along with; Elphie, who was so careless and seemingly unfeeling most of the time, regarding her roomie with equal parts contempt and love.

So lost in thought was I about my divulgence that I forgot to study Miss Galinda's expression and, when I looked at her, she was blinking rapidly, those now thoughtful eyes so clouded over that it seemed as though she was having an absurdly copious overflowing of thoughts. I was, to say the least, fascinated.

But she seemed to come to herself suddenly, and shook her head. The eyes were back, the blank sky-colored eyes that I had first looked into the day I had met Miss Galinda of the Arduennas of the Uplands. They were lovely, too. And inside, I was a bit relieved to have the old her back because it was familiar and the glimpse of the thinking Miss Galinda I had gotten had been too surreal – beautiful, but surreal.

"We mustn't gossip so, Master Boq," she murmured and I nodded sagely. "I do hope the rest of your day passes contentedly."

"The same to you," I said, bowing a bit. I started to walk off and then turned back, waving to Elphie and shouting, "Good-bye to you, too!"

Elphie offered a half-wave in return, but her eyes were on Miss Galinda, whose reflexive stare in Elphie's direction seemed to be unnerving the both of us.

-------

Avaric clamped a hand on my shoulder as he passed me in the corridor. I was examining myself in the looking glass, looking for any imperfections that I might notice later on and lament over whether or not Glinda (as she now called herself) had noticed them.

"Come on, we're meeting the girls at the canal and I'm eager to drink this wine."

"Yes, you always are."

"Boq, you look as dashing as you're going to, sorry to say." He grinned as though to soften the blow. "Come. What if Glinda dislikes lateness?"

It was Avaric, Glinda, Elphie, Nessarose and I, all atop a tattered picnic blanket underneath a tree by the Suicide Canal, pouring wine and laughing. Nanny was off not too far, sitting underneath another tree should Nessarose need her, but Elphie was helping Nessa with her drink, lifting the wine glass to her sister's lips.

Avaric, who was always the first to get drunk, was relating with exaggerated detail an incident in Nikidik's class involving Fiyero and himself to the girls (or Nessa and Glinda at any rate, as Elphie had been there) with loud, boisterous sound effects and obnoxious hand gestures. "… says you need a pinprick of human blood—of all things—so I say loudly, 'What's that about a prick, professor?' and Fiyero says…"

I glanced at Nessa who was looked appropriately scandalized, but could not seem to help the amusement that quirked the corner of her lips. Then, as I was wont to do, my eyes strayed toward Glinda. She was different and it was sometimes painful, sometimes good. She sat at the edge of the blanket and listened to Avaric with a small smile. Her eyes were as they had been that one day when I had glimpsed her in thought for the first time. They were always like that now, and it gave her an ethereal, intense sort of beauty that was far more overwhelming than the fresh-faced prettiness that she had once exuded. She did not preen and she did not sit about in coquettish ways; rather, she diverted attention from herself as often as possible, preferring to sit and listen instead of attempting to turn the conversation around to her.

She was beautiful for it. I loved her for it.

I did not think I was _in_ love with her for it, though, and that was a strange, empty feeling.

"… so Nikidik says something about would you kindly shut up and let me start the lecture here and so Fiyero, old boy, has the rather brilliant idea of staging a coughing fit…"

Her expression changed, then, as I watched her and I noticed her eyes were no longer on Avaric. They had flicked to Elphie, who was sitting beside her, knees drawn up to her chest, feet bare on the picnic blanket. She had an elbow resting on her knee and her chin resting on her hand and was the very picture of casual ennui, rolling her eyes every so often to silently protest Avaric's incorrect characterization of Fiyero (and she was right about that, for Fiyero had less input in Avaric's pranks than Avaric made it seem). And Glinda was watching her with a pensive, unreadable expression. I tuned out Avaric and watched Glinda watch Elphie. A strange state of affairs, this, a boy watching a girl watching a girl.

It was the oddest thing how, as I watched her, I suddenly felt embarrassed—voyeuristic, even—as though I was sitting outside a window, watching two people make love. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and it made my palms feel moist, the grip I had on my wine glass slipping a bit. I _was_, I realized as my throat felt like it was closing, because I was very nearly watching Glinda make love to Elphie with her eyes.

And it was all-too-familiar suddenly, like she was watching Elphie in the same way I used to watch her and sometimes still did. Her eyes swept over every inch of Elphie – the green feet, the long, bony torso, the slender fingers on which a sharply defined face rested. The long cascade of black hair, as though she were examining every strand of hair individually. She was memorizing the details, just as I had done with her; she was undressing and touching her with her eyes. I shouldn't have watched, it wasn't my place, but I found it impossible to tear my eyes away. She was in _love_ with Elphaba.

It was so abrasively obvious that I wondered why I had never seen it before.

As is customary when being watched, Elphie suddenly looked up and noticed Glinda looking at her. Glinda looked stricken, startled, and she flicked her eyes away quickly, blushing profusely. In doing so, she noticed me watching her and seemed to blush harder. Elphie looked Glinda over for a moment or two and then shrugged, turning her attention back to Avaric. And Glinda looked at me, her eyes pleading. She smiled at me, small and tentative. I smiled back and fell out of love with her. I smiled back and decided to keep her secret.

After all, I was no stranger to unrequited love.

**2. Two Afternoons of Reflex: Nessarose**

I felt removed often enough, and it was painstakingly stark when I looked in on Elphie and Glinda's room and compared it to the one I shared with Nanny. It was not the size that bothered me, it was the fact that Elphie and Glinda were best friends and their room was a lovely dedication to that. They could not be more different, it seemed, as one side of the room could be catalogued as "frilly" and the other as "bare". There were stacks and stacks of hatboxes on one side and stacks and stacks of musty books on the other. There was a closet filled with bright colored clothes on one side and a closet with a few drab pieces on the other.

I could envision, in the period before I came to Shiz when Glinda and Elphie didn't get along, this division in room personality creating an invisible line of sorts that would literally divide the room in half, thus dividing the two occupants of the room. And while the difference still remained, there were evidences to their friendship everywhere. Those bright colored clothes had representatives strewn across Elphie's bed, as if Glinda had attempted to get Elphie into them. Some of those boring, musty books were on the floor near Glinda's bed or on her nightstand because she had tried reading them. Most of all it was while they were both in the room together that no division existed, as they were usually both on one or the other's bed together, talking or studying.

My room with Nanny was nice enough, but it was a room I shared with Nanny. I had no Glinda to my Elphaba. I had no Crope to my Tibbett. I didn't even have an Avaric to my Boq. I was just Nessarose, who had the Unnamed God and a Nanny that served as arms.

This afternoon, Glinda and I sat on her bed, studying for our Ozian history exam, the only class we had together. Elphie was, as Glinda informed me, at a lecture and would be for a few hours. We were alone and Nanny was next door. I had convinced her that Glinda was just as good at taking care of me as she or Elphaba, but she still managed to wander in every so often on the pretense of looking for something, when I knew she was really checking up on me.

Glinda sighed, opening up a heavy textbook. "For a location I am sure I enjoy thoroughly, I find Ozian history to be frightfully dull," she said with a pained expression.

"As do I, loath as I am to admit it," I replied. "If it wasn't a requirement, I—"

"—wouldn't be taking it. Nor I."

I sighed wearily. "The course seems to gloss over the enormous impact of the unionist religion as the very foundation of Ozian history, more than I like."

"Well, that's in the interest of diplomacy," said Glinda. "They'd have to go into Lurlinism as it's derived, as well – and pleasure faithists, for that matter. You can't teach a course in a selectively predisposed fashion; you'd have to cover all aspects."

"Well, _I_ would teach the course correctly," I decided, "and make a point of the importance of unionism. Funny how we're expected to learn about this land as though it wasn't something the Unnamed God placed under our feet!"

Glinda chewed her lip, looking down at the textbook. She was a difficult one to read, I felt, because she was so inconclusive on important matters. At least Elphie (and this was all I could grant her) was resolute in her atheism, even if it was a disgusting display that she concocted for sheer shock value. Glinda seemed to waver on every subject, agreeing with Elphie on instances and having other opinions in other instances. Her family was perhaps properly unionist and she herself did not seem to doubt the existence of the Unnamed God. It seemed, actually, that she doubted the Unnamed God's affiliation with _her_, as though existence didn't necessarily translate into personal relationship. She often seemed as though she did not feel her morals were extensive enough for the Unnamed God to take notice, and I often wanted to tell her that this was not so, that the Unnamed God _would_ take notice if she made an effort to free herself of base motivations.

"I think that takes the focus off of geography," she remarked. "Which our professor obviously favors."

"I find that boring, too," I said. "Gillikin up north, Munchkinland in the east, all that—that's all _I_ need know. All right, I'll read the terms and you define them, is that all right?"

"Yes, all right." She propped the book up in my lap so that I could read it. She sat back on the bed, head against the pillows. I read the terms out loud and she defined them, ever impressing me with her quickness and cleverness. To hear her speak, she was envious of Elphie's brains, but she was smart herself. Perhaps more imaginative where Elphaba was logical, but still bright all the same. She had perfect cheekbones and a keen mind and it was lost on me how she could sometimes seem so unhappy.

For she did. She was sprawled out on her bed and I would read the term and she would murmur a perfunctory answer as concisely as she could. Her eyes were on the ceiling in what I thought was concentration but actually appeared a bit more like distraction. It was as though the answers to the questions were not on the forefront of her mind, as though they were secondary thoughts to a much larger picture. One that very obviously did not make her happy.

It was a situation like that which I found so curious, as Elphaba had told me of what Glinda had been like when she met her – shallow and seemingly incapable of carrying one train of thought in her head, never mind juggling several as she seemed to be doing now.

"There's a section here on the Thursk Desert," I said, my eyes moving down to the next term, "but I don't see why he would ask us about it, seeing as we haven't really covered the Vinkus yet—"

"Nessa," she said abruptly, "did Elphaba ever have any beaus while you were growing up?" She sat up and looked at me. It was as though the last hour had not existed, that she had been someone else answering the questions while she had been carrying on some sort of nonexistent, fabricated debate over whether or not Elphaba had had any beaus growing up.

I said, "Huh?" thinking there wasn't really much else _to_ say, but I did add, "Aren't we studying?" for good measure.

"Yes, we can get back to that," she said dismissively. "I was just wondering, I…" She blushed furiously. "Well, I her roomie and best friend, knowing nothing about her! You know how she is about opening up, Nessa, she's so sarcastic, she never tells me anything about her past."

Why should she? I knew Elphaba. I knew that she felt unloved at times, and I knew that she felt very much the same about her childhood as I did about Ozian history—that there were discrepancies here and there depending on viewpoint.

Glinda's eyes were wide and she looked so earnest, though, so after a moment, I said, "She had two or three, I suppose. She wasn't much for them, you see, all books and studying with her, but yes – there were two or three." And none for me. It was the funny irony of Thropp felicitousness that Quadling boys our age should prefer a girl with green skin to a girl with no arms.

Glinda frowned. "Well, which is it? Two or three?"

"Why, I don't know!" I cried. "She very rarely brought them around; Father rarely approved. They weren't the sort of boys _you_'d think of, being Quadlings."

"Oh." Glinda sat up, folding her legs underneath her dress. "Did she tell you of her first kiss, at least?"

"No," I said thoughtfully. Elphie and I were not those types of sisters. I loved her dearly and she loved me just as much, but we did not gossip and trade stories of boys and longing. It was not in our relationship. I sometimes felt as though she only loved me in the unconditional, reluctant way she loved Father, perhaps with less resentment. "This was never something we discussed."

"Oh."

"But then—" I started and then stopped. Oh, why not? It was true. "If you asked her enough, her sarcastic outer walls may wear thin and you may wrestle a story or two out of her. She's more inclined to tell you than I."

Glinda glumly placed her chin in her hand. "I wish she was less of a mystery, then I could think of her less." She looked at me and smiled sheepishly, her cheeks pink. "Um, don't you?"

I thought about it. "I've known her my entire life," I said. "I think I've done about as much thinking about her as I am able."

When I looked at her, she appeared to be watching me enviously. I didn't know why. I looked back down at the book.

The door opened and I made a face, trying my best to be patient but wondering what new excuse Nanny had made up so she could come check on me. It wasn't Nanny, though, it was Elphie, who tossed her shawl onto a chair and dumped a stack of books onto her desk. "What are you two ninnies doing sitting in the dark?" she asked, and I noticed that evening had fell and we had not bothered to light the lamp. I glanced at Glinda to see if she was as surprised as I was to find the afternoon gone, but her eyes had lit up as soon as Elphie had entered the room and she was already off the bed in greeting.

Elphaba went and lit the lamp and then the fireplace, hmphing about who on earth could possibly study in the dark. "You're later than usual," said Glinda anxiously. "You're usually back before this."

"Yes," said Elphie off-handedly, collapsing on her bed. "I had to pick up books. Dear Boq, bestill my heart, has gotten me some philosophy books from the Briscoe Hall library."

"What need have you of philosophy books," asked Glinda with a fond smile, "when you are quite obviously a philosopher yourself?"

"Perhaps I am merely studying up on a basis on which to refute," said Elphie dryly. "Conversation inevitably fell to you, Glinda, as it does with Boq."

"I was under the impression that his infatuation had passed," I offered, finding it difficult to apply patience and serenity to my mind in regards to the exclusion that sometimes set in when conversing with the two of them.

"An impression that I shared," said Elphie, nodding, "and can now back up with facts. The conversation went: 'How is Glinda doing, Elphie?' and I replied, 'Just as well as always. She seems to be in fluctuating serene moods lately, if you're eager to make a move on her.'

"'No,' he says, 'it's come to me suddenly that I'm not in love with her anymore. She's in love with someone else, and that suits me.'" She sat up in her bed a little, fixing Glinda with a hard stare. The Gillikin girl blushed and appeared to squirm, joining me on her bed and looking down at our textbook with interest. "Naturally," went on Elphaba, "I was shocked. 'No, Boq—I must have heard you wrong. Surely if Glinda were in love with someone, _I_ would be the first reluctant recipient of the news, for she tells me everything.'" She added, "Sometimes more than I'd like for her to tell me."

I looked at Glinda. She appeared as though she were wishing the windows were open so that she might jump out, or perhaps wishing that the bed would just suddenly engulf her and she would disappear. Why, she _was_ in love! "I didn't know you were in love, Glinda," I said. Despite myself, I found the idea of it interesting, almost falling off the bed in my eagerness. She put out a quick hand to steady me.

"Nor I," said Elphie casually, seeming amused with Glinda's embarrassment. "You'd think I would. So, who is it?"

Glinda shook her head in a flurry of blonde curls. The blush was gone, as were all traces of her embarrassment. "Oh, really, how childish," she said coolly. "What's this, I'll tell you my crushes if you tell me yours? Let's be better than that."

"Ah, but you know I can't be any better than I already am," said Elphie, "for I've stunted my betterment growth. Come on, tell us before Nessie falls off the bed and hurts herself. If it's Avaric, though, I think I shall use the Suicide Canal for what I always assumed its purpose was and throw myself into it."

"It isn't Avaric."

"Who, then?" I asked. Crope and Tibbett were handsome boys, but they were _overly_ so, and Glinda was at least smart enough to recognize the futility in an infatuation with either of them. I briefly considered Fiyero, but her smartness would smooth that over as well—what good would it be to fall in love with a married man?

Glinda rolled her eyes. "Let's have Pfannee and Shenshen over and make it a _real_ childhood gossip fest. Really, girls."

"Well—" I began, but Elphie cut me off.

"All right, she doesn't have to tell us." Her surrender may have been equal parts offense over being compared to Pfannee and Shenshen, and that it wasn't in Elphie's nature to be pushy on these sorts of matters, although she could be pushy as sin over matters that _she_ cared about.

We descended into a short, awkward silence as Glinda looked over her book and Elphie lay back on her bed, ankles crossed and feet propped up on the headboard.

"That's fortune, though, isn't it?" I asked finally. "That Boq isn't in love with you anymore?"

Glinda shrugged and nodded slightly. "I suppose. It's been that way for awhile."

Elphie said idly, "Nessa, I've never seen you so excited about gossip. Don't you know that evil very often lurks within gossiping words? Tsk."

I ignored her, for she was only trying to goad me and it was _beneath_ me to oblige her on such a thing. I studied my book, the conversation forgotten until ten or so minutes later when I glanced at Glinda to ask her a question and saw that her face was bright red and that she was still on the same page.

She looked up, startled. "What?"

"I had an architecture question—are you all right?"

"That's not an architecture question," quipped Elphie, who was lying lazily on her bed and not doing anything except wasting space and breathing air. She rolled over onto her side, propping her head up on her palm. "Yes, though—are you all right?"

"I'm perfectly fine," said Glinda, turning redder. "What was your question?"

"Tell me, Glinda," I said abruptly. "How is it that Boq knows who you're in love with and Elphie and I don't? Why would you tell him?"

"I didn't _tell _him," mumbled Glinda. "He must have figured it out, that's all."

"So then, if we figure it out, we can know?"

"Oh, who cares?" cried Elphie, throwing an arm over her eyes and scowling. "She said she won't tell, Nessa, and for the record, if you figure it out you _will_ know, even if you don't know that you know, which is—I'm sure—the comprehension that Boq is operating under."

It just seemed to me that I didn't _usually_ care for this sort of thing but when Glinda was making a big deal and getting all red over it, then it must have been someone we knew, and it was always nice to have information on that sort of thing.

"Yes, who cares?" said Glinda decisively.

Well, really. If they didn't care, then I didn't care.

-------

"I don't understand," I said quietly. "Why wouldn't she come back? What could possibly be more important than finishing school and staying with her friends?" And family?

Glinda shrugged dully. I sat at the foot of her bed and she was curled up near the headboard. We'd forgotten the lamp again. Not again. That had been a long time ago, long before they'd taken off for nearly a month's time and left us all to worry until we were sick, before Glinda had returned without Elphie.

"I don't know her," said Glinda laconically. Her voice was so hollow that I swore it echoed. "She's too much."

"What do you mean?" Glinda hadn't done a lot of speaking since she'd come back, at least not about Elphaba. Now it was four days later, late at night. We were supposed to be studying. She'd fallen so behind and I was to help her.

"I mean, that—" She sounded like she was choking. "She's more expansive than I can understand. She's older than I'll ever be. Does that make sense? I would never think of leaving school for some great Cause. I'm too young."

"Elphie has always been older than her age." She flinched when I said her name.

"Yes."

"What did she _say_ to you?"

"She couldn't come back," said Glinda simply. "She didn't know where she was going, but she couldn't return. Nessa—I don't like Madame Morrible, either. I don't want to be a part of her school. But I am! I have to be! Of course I'm staying; what good could I do elsewhere?"

"Didn't you say that to El—to her?"

"I didn't get a chance. She just _left_ me."

Oh, really! She'd left me, too. I frowned and bit my lips, trying not to get angry with her. I thought for something comforting to say and then supposed I had it. "Glinda—"

"Nessa," she countered desperately, "you think she'll come back, don't you? I do. I think she'll realize she can't do any good and she'll come back."

It was difficult to respond.

"I think she will," repeated Glinda. "Imagine, Elphaba leaving school. She likes school more than she likes people. You think she'll come back, don't you?"

"I couldn't say," I murmured because I wholly believed she wouldn't.

"What'll I _do_ if she doesn't?"

It was a question steeped more in fickle desperation than anything, I felt. I shook my head. "You'll do what you've always meant to do; I don't see exactly why you should change your plans just because—"

"Yes," said Glinda quickly, a shadow falling over her eyes. "Why should I change anything just because..." I watched the slow movement of her head as she lowered it, wetting her lips. "Because."

I had prayer and I had the slightest bit of tranquil forgiveness that I could perhaps pass on to her, but something told me that it wouldn't do her any good. It wasn't doing me any good—it hadn't when they were gone and it hadn't when Glinda had returned without Elphaba. So I tried to think of what I might say. So much of life, I was suddenly realizing, was attempting to decipher the right bits to say to people. If only you could force emotion. It was unnatural, of course, but if only you could force people into feeling what you wanted them to feel.

"Glinda," I said carefully. "I know that you loved her—"

"How could you possibly know that?"

I had never heard her voice so harsh.

I looked up, surprised; her trembling lower lip was startling, the flush across her cheeks was startling. I was unsure of what to say, again. "I—Because I love her as well and so I understand what that looks like," I said after a moment of deliberation.

But she was still flushing and her lips were still quivering and her eyes darted a bit, they strayed to the bare, empty bed across the room and it was suddenly rather clear to me that she and I had two entirely different methods of love in mind.

It did not matter, for the moment, that the idea of it made me sick in the stomach; more than that, I was trying to remember the importance of compassion. "Well," I said quietly, "perhaps I _don't_ understand."

Glinda sniffled. I averted my eyes and shifted away from her a bit.

I did not understand them, Elphaba and Glinda, at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Angular** by Chudley Cannon

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Notes: This works better, I think, if you take this part and read it as either a companion piece to the first part or the actual second half of a long oneshot. I don't know why I broke it up into two chapters, it feels weird to me. Oh yeah. And this was written, for the most part, prior to reading Son of a Witch. Which is not overly relevant, I don't think, but if, for example, you remember a part in SoaW where Liir laments over Elphaba's hatred of cupcakes and here I have her delightfully scarfing down cupcakes -- well, I didn't know about it when I first wrote it, you know?

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**Part II**

**3. Tributary Empathy: Elphaba**

I did not have expectations.

I of course say this to mean that my expectations, as far as my roommate went, were limited. I knew that I should have one and my assumption was that she would be female and that was perhaps as far as my thinking on it went. I did not wonder as far as getting along or not getting along, helping one another with schoolwork or not. It was simply this: existent and female.

Galinda existed and was obviously female and, harsh and impossible to imagine as it is, I don't think she liked me very much to begin with. If I were the artless, inefficient type I would make guesses on this having to do with the color of my skin, but once I knew her a bit better I realized that this was an oversimplification that was unfair to her. To say that my roommate should dislike someone for one reason, and a reason as dull as unfortunate skin pigmentation at that, would be an insult. The interesting thing about Galinda was that she was so riddled with complexities that when they came together she seemed almost _simple_ as a result.

But as I've said before, I never had any expectations when it came to her so she was never less or more to me than I needed her to be.

Then, of course, living with a person for a long or short time, certain things begin to be expected. Expectations become, I suppose, necessary. I expected that every night she would wash her hair and brush out the curls and every morning she would put the curls back in. I'd watch her, and I suppose this unnerved her. I know this because she had this to say about it: "When you watch me, it unnerves me so." It couldn't be helped, of course, because I'm very concerned with life cycles, or just life in general—but mostly, yes, the cyclical aspects of it. Life and death and the importance of the in-between, you know. With Galinda, a certain shirking of schedule was normal; she did not prefer to show up at her classes on time or take her tea at the same time everyday. Yet, every night without fail she scrubbed herself of what seemed to me to be cultural expectations, this slathering of make-up, the curling of hair. And every morning without fail she met the same expectations and the slathering and curling began again. I was helpless to curb my interest in it.

This particular night, as she sat up in bed brushing her hair and I sat up reading, Ama Clutch said as she went to pull the window drapes closed, "Well there's the lights on, Doctor Goat is at it again."

"What's he at?" I asked, glancing up from my book.

"What he's always at, I'd say, 'though I couldn't figure it out." She clucked her tongue a few times. Galinda looked over at me as if she meant to roll her eyes, but her gaze became caught elsewhere. Her eyes did not meet mine, rather they were off just a bit and I thought she might be examining my nightgown.

I glanced back up at Ama Clutch as she pressed her nose to the window and narrowed her eyes. "Well," she said quietly, "now isn't that funny?"

"What's funny, Ama Clutch?" I asked.

Hastily, Ama Clutch closed the drapes tightly and said in a voice that was strange, choked: "Oh, nothing, my ducks. I'll just step down to check and make sure everything's all right."

Galinda seemed to rouse herself into attention suddenly. "Make sure what's all right?"

"As long as you girls are abed," went on Ama Clutch, not hearing her. I frowned. She went around the bed and laid one hand flat against Galinda's cheek. "Good night, dears." She moved toward the door and flicked her eyes in my direction. "Into bed soon, not up too late," she added, and then opened the door and left the room.

With a disinterested grumble, Galinda went back to brushing her hair. I returned to my book. "Hmph," she said and then she said it a bit louder as though I hadn't heard her: "Hmph."

"What?"

"She forgot to stoke the fire, Ama Clutch, and it's going to be a cold night."

"It's warm in here."

"It is _now_, the fire hasn't gone out yet," said Galinda impatiently. "In the middle of the night it won't be so."

"Hmm," I agreed, but did not know what she wanted me to do about it.

She sighed heavily.

I stood from the bed. "Perhaps I'll add another log."

"Oh, aren't you nice, thank you."

When it was to do with something like that, I often felt as though I would be better off if I _did_ start expecting things about Galinda.

Finally, she set her hairbrush down and I took this as my cue to set my book aside. I made to turn off my lamp, saying, "Bed, then?"

"Oh," said Galinda carelessly, "I hope it's all right if I leave mine on; I need to study."

"Now?"

"Well yes, now, the exam's tomorrow isn't it?"

"What have you been doing all day that you couldn't have studied—"

"Well, Miss Pfannee and I took a walk along the canal—"

"Oh, yes," I said scathingly. "That does seem to be the most essential of tasks."

"—and my shoes got wet and I had to assure that—"

"Miss Galinda."

"Oh, Miss Elphaba, you don't _mind_, do you?"

Really, I was rather relieved that she was studying in the first place. An irrational fear that she would be placed on academic probation had dug itself inside my chest and refused to dig itself out. I slid down lower into my bed and said, "No, I don't mind," prompting Galinda to bestow upon me a relieved and pretty smile. I put my light out and rolled over to face the wall.

The fire crackled unremarkably and the muted, warm glow of Galinda's lamp was more comforting than I had guessed it would be; as was the shifting of her mattress, the shuffling of pages, the light, yielding sighs. I was not at all opposed to falling asleep in this particular environment.

"Miss Elphaba?"

I frowned. "Yes."

"What does obsolescence mean?"

I turned slightly, not opening my eyes. "It's… well, it's the act of becoming obsolete—or being obsolete."

"Oh. Of course."

I rolled over again and attempted to slide back into the comfortable, faraway, precipice-of-sleep sort of feeling.

"Well, what has it to do with Munchkin theory? The Munchkins aren't obsolete."

"Not yet we aren't," I quipped idly.

"How am I supposed to understand this at all?" the whining, plaintive wail came from the other bed. "These sentences are a mess of convolution if I've ever seen—"

"Bring it here," I told her abruptly, opening my eyes at last. I held my hand out and she was off her bed and at the edge of mine in a moment as I sat up, adjusting my mess of blankets and taking the proffered textbook.

I read the sentence over a few times, and then glanced at her, immediately flicking my attention from the light, expectant eyes. "Well, it refers to the obsolescence of full-sized Munchkins and the dominance of diminutive ones. I suppose the idea is that this points toward some sort of future upheaval, which sounds like nonsense if you ask me." I tipped the cover closed, looking at the title. "Why are you taking a Munchkin theory course anyway?"

She stared blankly at me and then shrugged. "My mother would like for me to be more culturally refined."

"Oh." I passed the textbook back to her.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well what?"

"What the dickens does it mean?" she asked impatiently. "You only gave me the words and I need the meaning."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"Well, please? Miss Elphaba, I am trying my very best to be better at this and you're making me feel quite silly to be trying in the first place."

That did the trick of softening me a bit—I cast my gaze down toward the book again. "Well, it's this old belief, as far as I know, that Munchkins are gradually shrinking or what-have-you—but that's always struck me as being rubbish, too—I mean, there's some sort of superiority complex among taller Munchkin families—"

"Like yours."

"Yes," I gritted out, "although the intricacies of my particular family should say enough about that theory, I think. But that's part of it, yes, my family being one of the oldest there is and people supposing there's some sort of correlation between height and class distinction."

"I am not sure I understand."

"You're lucky. Like most theories, it has its share of holes. Take your dear friend Miss Pfannee for one—a great deal richer than I and more than a foot shorter. It's the entire problem with attempting to generalize an entirety in persona. There's an enormous amount of falsities."

"Well," said Galinda thoughtfully, "your family is a great deal more powerful than Miss Pfannee's, isn't it?"

"In theory, I suppose," I said, the idea amusing me. "But then, it's not as though we can afford a summer home at Lake Chorge, can we?"

Galinda's expression plainly said that she did not appreciate my attempts at humor; moreover, it humiliated her. I bit down on my lower lip and tried to think of the best way to properly explain that teasing her grew out of a necessity that involved a younger sister of whom teasing was forbidden; you didn't tease Nessie, she was just so very _pure_.

But Galinda said, "Oh, Miss Elphaba," in a quiet, reproving and slightly thoughtful tone and I could not help but feel the slightest bit chastened.

"I apologize," I said to her and then added, "but there you are, a real life example to study."

She didn't appear to be listening, really, but she looked very much like she wanted to say something; she rid her lips of the words, a flush erupting across her cheeks. The stirring urge inside me was to watch it, so I did. After a moment, fingering the edge of the textbook and avoiding my gaze she said, "I was… touched that you would visit because you thought I had requested it."

"Tsk," I said, at a loss to say anything else. "Well, really, shouldn't it be Miss Pfannee who is touched, since she was the one who extended the invitation?"

Galinda glared at me. "Well, if I _had_."

"Yes, but you wouldn't have."

Galinda crossed her arms and gave me a sharp, icy look. "No, not with how you're behaving currently."

"Oh, what did I do," I snapped, "besides reveal the unequivocal truth that you—for no discernable reason—are trying to mask? I don't argue the point of what you and your friends find repugnant, I'd hope you would allow me a similar courtesy."

"I meant to say that it was a cruel trick she played and I hoped it would alleviate you to know that I appreciated the gesture you made."

It would have perhaps alleviated me to know it a while ago when it had occurred; at this juncture, though, it was just false, uneasy appeasement.

Yes, well, it was Boq really, I thought of saying; deflection was an extraordinary tactic as it allowed obtuseness where obtuseness did not normally exist. However, I only said, "The thought of you bored out of your lovely skull was painful. I thought I had to rescue you."

"You did, somewhat," she said with a slight, blithe smile. "It was bound to be an entire holiday of comparing dress materials."

"I do hope you mean that metaphorically."

"I fearfully do not. I only went because I had to attempt to exploit being invited over Miss Milla." She punctuated this with a self-satisfied smirk and an expectant and amusing expression.

Instead of laughing, though, I said, "Quite the social coup."

"Yes," she agreed without acknowledging the absurdity of it, "it was impossible to pass up."

"Oh, I imagine."

Perhaps my sarcasm was a bit too thickly laid on because Galinda flicked her eyes toward me promptly, a frown set upon her features so ethereally pretty it must have been practiced. "Oh," she said knowingly, "you think me vain and foolish. I assure you, it is all quite strategic."

"I—what?"

"A certain balance needs to be found between what one wants and what society wants one to accomplish. I think I'm striking that perfect balance, don't you?"

The room was a bit dimmer than it had been a moment ago. Galinda's lamp was waning, the acrid smell of oil in the air, and even the fire was going out just the slightest.

"I don't deny that I'm vain," she went on, "but I suppose I would be offended if you really find me as foolish as I suppose I come off."

"I don't," I said. "I don't think you're at all foolish."

"And I don't find you at all repugnant, so we're at evens."

"I suppose we are."

She smiled at me. "You have lovely, lovely hair." She lifted one hand as if to touch it and then snapped her hand back. I watched her and decided there was nothing at all that I expected when it had to do with her. She was silly and sort of brilliant, too, and certainly beyond expectations.

She arched and stretched, yawning. "And where the devil is Ama Clutch?"

"Oh." I watched her gather up the textbook and drop it on the floor as she climbed into her own bed. "I'm sure she'll be back with the tea by tomorrow morning."

"She had better be," yawned Galinda.

"What about your studying?" I asked her. She slid down into her covers and rolled her head lazily to look at me. Her expression was restrained—and so very blank.

"Well, that," she said, turning her lamp off. "I'm going to withdraw from that class. Goodnight, Miss Elphaba."

"Goodnight, Miss Galinda."

-------

A glass of champagne was shoved unceremoniously into my hands as we entered the Peach and Kidneys and I passed it along to Glinda, who drank gratefully. The red in her eyes was finally receding and a bit of color was returning to her cheeks, thankfully. Now was probably not the time to broach the subject of us visiting the Wizard, but I knew we had to. Perhaps I could go it alone, but Glinda had been at that bewildering meeting with Morrible, too—_better not think about that just yet_, _don't try, shhh_—and she ought to share my unnerved feeling. I wasn't about to bring along Nessa, she was far too delicate for that sort of thing, and besides, she wouldn't hear of it in the first place.

"Elphie, drink something, will you?" Boq rose from the booth, extracting himself from the tangle of Tibbett, Pfannee, and Crope, all utterly intertwined in drunken stupidity. "You look ridiculous just standing there—"

"Like a fantastical green storybook creature," interrupted Avaric with a drunk, lopsided smile.

"Yes, that."

"Yes," I said, sinking down into the booth next to Glinda. "Maybe one drink, but—"

And Glinda had already ordered me a sandwich (and was already doing a rather unfunny impersonation of my speech from a few weeks ago about one inviting illness when one drinks on an empty stomach), so I took the glass of champagne offered to me and drank from it wearily.

"What're you lot doing showing up so late anyway?" asked Boq. "What the hell could Morrible have kept you so long for?"

"Please do not mention her name," murmured Glinda, closing her eyes briefly, "or I shall retch."

"Attractive," I commented.

"Very," agreed Boq with an amused smile.

My sandwich was plunked down in front of me and the server gave our table a hateful look. I had an inkling of an idea that we were being a bit too loud ("we" of course referring to the boisterous singing duo of Tibbett and Avaric), but what did they expect from drunken university students? I reached for my champagne to find that Glinda had consumed it.

"Oh, we'll have the ale!" Boq shouted to our server. "It's far cheaper."

"We drink nothing cheap tonight," said Avaric and he halted his song to raise his glass in a toast. "Just because Morrible—"

"Ugh," said Glinda.

"—was too tight to give Ama Clutch a proper send-off doesn't mean we'll be."

"What's this 'we'?" muttered Shenshen. "It's your money, Avaric."

"Well, okay, but I'm not toasting alone." He pulled his coin purse out and dumped the entirety of its contents on the table. "You!" he shouted, pointing to our disgruntled server. "A salver of saffron cream, now."

"I'm not sure we have any—"

"This is an embarrassing amount of money," wheedled Avaric with a charming smile. "I am sure you have _some_."

This appeared to do the trick, and as she made off for the cream, we lifted our glasses in toast to Ama Clutch. It went on for quite awhile, shared anecdotes from the other Amas, Glinda, and I—even a few from the boys about her ability to be scarce when socializing was in order—and then the saffron cream was here—"scraped out of the bottom of the larder," the server gritted out with a queer smile and Tibbett picked his song back up. The Peach and Kidneys began to empty as our crowd got rowdier, but no one seemed to mind; indeed the saffron cream and champagne made us all a bit oblivious to anything.

Glinda had curled herself into a ball at my side, head slumped against my shoulder as she idly engineered the progress of a saffron cream replica of Shiz University that Crope, Shenshen, and Fiyero were erecting. "No, no," she slurred with a half-hearted gesture, "the roof on Crage Hall slopes lower; the pediments couldn't possibly support _that_." She brushed her cheek against my arm, smiled blearily up at me, and then closed her eyes.

"Elphie," prodded Boq from across the table, "are you listening to me?"

"No," I said honestly.

"I said don't let her fall asleep, she'll cheat us out of sharing cab fare if we have to carry her."

"Oh." I chuckled. "All right. We could always leave her here, though; they might be gentlemen and send her back to Shiz in a packing crate."

"That isn't funny." Boq frowned. He was hit in the side of the head with a spoonful of saffron cream. "Jackass," he grumbled at Avaric.

"Usually it would be," I said, offering my handkerchief. "What's wrong with you?"

He shrugged, wiping his face. "You ought to—" He broke off, staring helplessly down at Glinda, perhaps to determine how asleep she was. "You ought to be nicer to her."

"I was only kidding. I _am_ nice to her, I'm rarely as accommodating with anyone else."

"Appreciate her more, then."

I snickered. "I do. I'd say it's a bit difficult to appreciate her as much as _you_ seem to, but—"

"Oh hell, that isn't it, I'm not in love with her anymore." I couldn't tell if he was flushed from inebriation or frustration, but perhaps it was both. "I just mean that—this may surprise you, Elphie, but Glinda is probably the first person to not only accept you for your imperfections, but like you for them as well."

"What a thing to say," I said in a surly tone, taking an awkward sip of the bitter ale in my mug. "Like I said, I appreciate her."

"I didn't mean it like—well, hell, _I_ like you, imperfections and all. I just mean that Glinda…"

"I heard you."

Boq gave me a look that suggested I was being difficult. Pfannee, sitting at his side, wondered aloud, "What's wrong with her?" and cast a subdued, curious look toward Glinda.

"I do hope you mean other than the recent death of her Ama," I said mildly, "unless you've really forgotten so quickly."

Pfannee flushed a bit and replied coolly, "There are other things that have garnered my concern."

"What's that?" asked Boq. Despite myself, I glanced down at the face nestled against my sleeve.

"Just her overall strangeness, you know—she's so _quiet_, isn't she?"

"Well," I said off-handedly, "bless her for not jabbering on all the time like some people."

"That was directed at me," sniffed Pfannee.

"It was directed at no one, stop flattering yourself." I looked away. I felt a fair bit more annoyed with her than I usually did, although I couldn't decide whether it was annoyance over the idiocy of using _quiet_ pejoratively or the bristling concept of talking about Glinda right in front of her. At any rate, I turned my attention toward Nessarose, tipsy as ever. She managed a fair approximation of ladylike fervor, her legs crossed primly even as she was slumped against the back of her chair. I chuckled but it ended itself far too quickly as my gaze strayed down toward her shoes; my throat burned a bit but I attempted to forget about it, jealousy was unwarranted—and ignoble, too, for that matter—I didn't give a damn about her shoes.

"You don't need them, you know." Glinda was yawning against my arm, speaking drowsily. I glanced down at her to see that she had followed my gaze. Her eyes met mine and then she averted them, focusing instead on the Shiz replica, the caved-in exterior of the east tower. "You're distinctive all on your own."

"I don't see why she needed any more distinction." Our voices were quiet as we leaned in close, the noise of our companions becoming indistinct droning. "After all—"

"She has no arms," finished Glinda and I was grateful because I wouldn't have said it. I swallowed again and wished I could swallow back pettiness.

For it _was _petty and I could see that Glinda knew it as well. She yawned once more. "They're only shoes, Elphie. They're her only defense. You have your own defenses, you have loads of them."

"And you have loads of platitudes," I muttered and then, as an afterthought, "Thank you."

"Don't thank—"

We were interrupted by the pub's manager, who came by with a fierce scowl and told us that we were making far too much noise; "It's late besides, you ought to get the hell out, all of you."

"Oh hell," slurred Avaric, rising unsteadily, "after all that damned money I put down. I could've bought an entire district with it and I settled for your shitty saffron cream."

We filed out into the cold night, wet and slippery from previous circumstances, but thankfully not raining. I moved to help Nessarose down off the curb, but Nanny was already holding her steady so I held my hand out to Glinda and she took it; she stepped into the street with me and her eyes slid uncomfortably low, she swayed dangerously close and laced her fingers with mine. I pressed my hand against the small of her back to keep her steady, watching the dim lamplight slither down her glistening curls until it settled at our clasped hands.

In that light, the frightening cool moistness in the air, she was capable, proficient—she appeared to know exactly what she wanted. She pulled me closer and refused, for once, to avert her eyes from their steady training on mine.

I pulled away from her quickly, feeling strange and lost, entirely out of sorts. I tried to listen to the others—Avaric had an idea, he was saying so—ignore Glinda's dangerous expression, the hungry look in her eyes, the soft, pale blur of her skin—"Who's man enough for the Philosophy Club tonight?"

No, no, no. I didn't care to think about that or Glinda or whatever that was. That wasn't me, I wasn't confined to emotions like that, I was the one who was yearning for a purpose. I maintained a safe distance from Glinda and let the others deliberate; reminding myself that the important things amounted to Doctor Dillamond's lost work and the principle of things, always the Principles of Things.

I knew then that I _would_ go to the Emerald City and speak to the Wizard. And I knew that Glinda would come with me. I'd expected all the wrong things out of her, of course, when I probably shouldn't have expected anything at all.

**4. On Pursuit: Glinda**

"Oh, darling, you'll be so rich you won't know what to do with yourself," said Chuffrey, kissing me on the forehead. I smiled radiantly as only a virgin on her wedding night can, a virgin who had just married one of the richest and most influential men in all of the Pertha Hills. I was so happy and it was easy to be, for I didn't have a heart, not with me. Peculiar thing, how one could go to the Emerald City as a young university student and have one—and return to school without one, but that's how it had happened.

So I smiled and Sir Chuffrey and I chatted about love and marriage, how the two went hand-in-hand. I knew it was not lying. I knew it was not my fault.

I cried on our wedding night and Chuffrey found this charming, I'm sure. I did not sleep that night, the open window of the finest suite in the finest hotel in the Emerald City was too tempting. I lay in bed and thought and thought.

I did not think of her everyday, only occasionally. There was talk of Animal riots and I wondered if it was her doing. I hated them, Animals, I hated her for caring about them. I hated every year since I last saw her, every second in fact, where I began to feel my carefully constructed cleverness dissolving. She had accepted me when I thought, she liked me that way. The rest of the world did not. I was a Sorceress and public figure and Brain did not immediately require Power or Wealth or Influence.

It was a sad day when I realized my thoughts had permanently left me, when I stood next to Chuffrey at one thing or another and the men were talking work and I could not voice Opinion. Not only because propriety dictated a seen-and-not-heard approach to matters of politics, but that my rusty and out of use mind found it impossible (and affronted that I should even _try_) to formulate Opinion. "How do you feel about the taxing of Munchkin irrigation farmers?" I'd ask myself desperately. I did not know. I had forgotten how to look at it as more than a fact.

This was her fault, most certainly, and I hoped she was off doing something illegal, I hoped she became arrested. I wanted to visit her in jail and hate her, to hurt her, to insult her, to call her all those derogatory terms I had dreamt up the first week I knew her.

I knew on many levels how unlikely this scenario was. I traveled to Munchkinland to see Nessarose, to reminisce about old days, to soliloquize about new, to slip in a have you any Idea where you sister has taken off to?

We had tea, chatted about this and that—what's it like being a famous Sorceress, how is it ruling over all those Munchkins, you look well, you look young, that sort of thing. When an hour or two of unmentionable conversation ran into a self-imposed lull, I posed the question: "Nessie," I said, using her pet name to endear her to me, "did you ever see our dear Elphie again?"

It was startling, frightening to see her face darken so quickly, fine eyebrows drawing together. "You mean the sister who left me?" she asked quietly.

I said, without thinking, "Nessa, she left the both of us."

"Oh, yes, that," muttered Nessa. "I'd nearly forgotten how you were in love with her."

Denying it, I was sure, would have made for strangled words and flushed cheeks so I attempted a laugh, a light, careless laugh. Nessarose, though, did not pair social graces with everyday expectations and was not about to let me laugh the situation into nothingness. I cleared my throat.

"I don't know what—"

"You've had many years to come to terms with it, Glinda," she said curtly, "and I can't grasp the idea that you haven't."

"You misunderstand the thing with Elphie and me."

"Elphie, Elphie. Even when my father was the most detached, the most estranged, he still called her Fabala. Isn't that funny? As though to mitigate a feeling too complex, more _spiteful_ than a man of such faith is allowed."

I frowned. "Or perhaps it was a bit of him loving her when the rest of him didn't know about it."

Nessarose smiled, but it was not nice. "Perhaps that, too. Is that what this is? The remnants of a fondness you're unable to repress?"

I chose to ignore her. It was a visceral reaction; I'd spent years in my head, making excuses for Elphie and why she had done what she'd done, for our relationship, for the eccentric nature of my attachment to her. By this time, I suppose, I was quite out of excuses. And Nessarose still retained the perceptive, unflinching scrutiny she'd had when we were in school—how very alike she and Elphie could be, I'd always thought so.

"Nessa," I said quietly, "I came here to—"

"You came here to command my attention so that you could swing the conversation about to my sister," she snapped. "It's what you've always done. You couldn't be alone with me for very long before you were interrogating me about her."

Yes, well, that was her own antecedent turned on its head; Nessarose was eternally the center of attention for most, but not when it came to me. My own personal feelings for Elphie aside, Nessa was too difficult a concept for me to grasp. Not that her sister hadn't been as well—oh no, Elphie was the most difficult of concepts, but there was nothing in Nessa that made me want to work at translating her.

And perhaps I understood it better now. I understood Elphie's perception that she was constantly in the shadow of Nessarose and I understood Nessarose's perception that she was forever in the shadow of Elphie. Terrible, cyclical nonsense. They were both important and unimportant in their own rights; it saddened me to think that I was perhaps the only one to see that.

"I thought I'd bring you a gift," I said suddenly and Nessarose looked at me. For a brief, still moment she looked just like her old self, a college girl whose serenity was often baffled by her inability to understand things. I could sympathize with that. We both had the same inscrutable icon—Elphaba, Elphaba, Elphaba, bright of mind, dull of purity.

"What's that?" she asked.

I nodded to her shoes. "I suppose I could do a little something. What's the use of being a Sorceress if you can't do things for a lark now and then?"

The enchantment was a modification of one I'd learned in school and never had much use for. I suppose it wasn't very difficult to do but I'm the first to admit I'm not very good, so it must have been; to this day I'm still not sure how I pulled it off, although perhaps concentrated willingness counts for something.

"There," I said softly. "How's that?"

As I watched her rise and stand without any help, I was fully cognizant of the subtle mockeries of my own feelings. Oh, it wasn't a selfless act and I was terrible for it, terrible for my single-minded devotion to what I couldn't have. Elphaba, that is. I wanted her as much as she'd wanted Nessarose's shoes and it was silly and small-minded and petty, but it was all I had.

-------

I had a strange feeling every time I visited the Emerald City now, perhaps because I was there so often and there had been such a reprieve between my first time there and my second time. My first, I was a schoolgirl and I was afraid and it had seemed very large and impossible to navigate and very green, as well. Now, I think, it had well-worn paths and a tight, conciseness to it and perhaps I was biased, but it seemed as if the greenness of it was a bit muted now.

When I voiced this idea to Crope over tea, he said, "You _are_ biased," so that must have been that.

I wouldn't call my marriage to Chuffrey a loveless one, because that would be too clichéd for me to bear it—there _was_ love. Now. I supposed I just couldn't properly explain what sort of love it was and I felt this had a lot to do with how many times I'd encountered the different interpretations of that particular word in my life.

Love, that is.

When I was a child, I had been very much in love with the man who fixed our food because he had been very handsome in that sweeping way that poor men had, with hair that hung in his eyes and a smile that was more self-conscious than charming, really. But it was the hair, I think, dark and prominent, that I really loved. I was a _child_, but it started everything, this fascination with hair that followed me throughout my entire life. I fell in love all the time because of that. Hair. Male, female, dark, light—if it was beautiful, I was in love with it and I very rarely developed any attraction to the person the hair was attached to.

I felt at first that Elphaba had swindled me because her hair was so lovely. It was the first and last thing I noticed about her—and you may call me a liar, for surely, her _skin_ was the first thing I noticed about her, but I assure you that it was the very startling second thing—and now, still, when my memory of her features was blurring, the precise shade of her skin not very rigid in my mind—I could remember perhaps every strand of her hair.

Chuffrey was bald. I mean, I was genuinely fond of him, though.

And I enjoyed being rich and I enjoyed it all. I enjoyed entertaining the idea that I had enough money and influence that if I wanted to track her down, I could hire the right people to sniff her out like a dog and deliver her to me, bound up, perhaps gagged. And I'd only punish her for a little while. Mostly, I'd just be happy to see her.

I could not find it in me to actually do it, though, because there was that small, terrible chance that it wouldn't work and if _that_ happened I was not sure what I would do.

It was a painful, clinging hope that had been keeping me alive for years.

At any rate, by the time the house fell, I hadn't been in the Emerald City for years and it, like Elphaba, had erased its image from my mind. I had found pockets and corners of Munchkinland just darling—perhaps I was seeing it correctly because Nessarose, for all her fervor and obligations, had never seemed to care an ounce what Munchkinland was really _like_. But I liked it. The architecture was self-effacing in places, like it was much too shy to even make an effort at being gaudy, and that was appreciated. It was a rustic, tragic place and I adored it and it became even more so when the house fell.

And when the house fell I just knew she'd be there. The moment there was news, I could almost feel her. Her features came rushing back to me, the timbre of her voice, the sharp, unconcerned charm she had that made me shiver.

"Who knows of this unrest," I wrote in my letters to Chuffrey. "It seems unfitting for me to leave just yet—an explosion could erupt at my heels."

In truth, I was waiting for her. And if I had ever bothered to even utter her name around my husband, he would have surely known just that. But I had never mentioned her for fear that just the way I said her name would reveal what I felt for her.

Perhaps it was horrible of me, but I reconciled my feelings about Nessarose's death very quickly because of this. Well, I _had_ to! Imagine, all those Munchkins rallied around dear little me and that poor girl, frightened that she'd gone and committed _murder_—which, really, she had—and so I had to get past it, I had to say to myself, "Well no, I suppose she wasn't as wicked as these bitter Munchkins make her out to be—a bit eccentric, yes, a touch tyrannical, maybe a streak of callousness—not exactly wicked, though," and then decide that it was a lot easier to think of her a Wicked Witch who had died rather than a close, dear friend who had died, a last link to Elphie departed.

Eccentric. Who was I to say? I felt old and I felt faded and _I_ felt eccentric—senile—mad—panicked—there were murmurs of Elphie's return long before I saw her—"She's with her father now, I think"—"I suspect she'll take over things here, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that"—"Have you noticed she's still green as sin? Goodness, I'd forgotten about that."

It was strange, finding myself in the midst of a place that remembered and knew Elphie from a time before even I remembered and knew her. I thought I had come to grips long ago with the fact that life did not begin and end with Shiz University, but perhaps I hadn't quite.

I toiled and fretted, bouncing from pretending I'd forgotten her to reeling her in as efficiently and charmingly as I imagined myself capable. But as she strode toward me to meet me on the overgrown lawn, I could not be anyone but myself—silly, flighty, absent of maturity.

"Oh, you came, I knew you would," I found myself crying. "Miss Elphaba, the last true Eminent Thropp, no matter what they say!"

And we found ourselves at a chapel, and Elphaba nodded to it and referred to it as her father's old stomping grounds. She shifted; she was tired, like me. She'd never admit it as weakness, but I knew she was, just as I knew we were both old and that I would never admit it.

"I think I'll look up Boq while I'm here," she said, casting a compliant and uninterested eye toward the architecture of the chapel. "He's still in the same place, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's—not too far down the Yellow Brick—perhaps a few day's walk."

She didn't appear to be listening to me. "It's strange. You know, I didn't live here very long, I remember a bit of it when Nessarose was born although I was barely three. I spent most of my growing up years in Quadling Country. I spent years and years in the Emerald City, too. But if you dropped me down in any of those places, I'd most likely find myself lost. Here—I can find Colwen Grounds with my eyes closed."

"Perhaps it was more important to you than you choose to remember."

"Perhaps it's the mortality rate," she quipped. "Turtle Heart, Nessa—Father soon."

"Elphie," I admonished, "that's terrible."

She nearly smiled. "I missed that."

"Missed what?"

"Having you as my moral conscience."

"I'm not sure soulless people are provided moral consciences."

She cocked her head to the side. "I suppose that explains mine being in the form of another person."

She looked the same as always—which was sensible because she'd never been her age to begin with. If I looked at her too long, her features were too prominent, too familiar, so I looked away as I always did—as I had years ago—I didn't want her features committed to memory.

"I don't know that you ever stopped me from doing something I'd set it in my mind to do," she began thoughtfully.

I felt cold suddenly, familiar abandonment lacing through my insides. "No," I said carefully, "I suppose I did not." After a moment, I looked at her again. "I don't know that I could've been anyone's moral conscience, Elphie, I was never terrifically moral."

She shrugged. "You were a figurehead, then. Boq said something a long time ago—I remember this as clearly as I remember most things. I assumed he was being an asshole—entirely warranted, I may have picked an argument with him."

"What was it?"

"Oh, some claptrap about you accepting me when I made it difficult to—or, really, it wasn't claptrap, was it, I just pretended it was. And I thought how terrible, how true. And how obtrusive of Boq to point it out."

I lacked the necessary aplomb and finesse required to pull off an indifferent expression like the one I wanted. I looked down, studying the limp and restless hem of Elphaba's dress as it skirted feebly around her ankles. "I suppose Boq always had a bit of… something to him, didn't he?"

"Yes, he had," she agreed. "He was always rather perceptive, I thought, although he could be quite imperceptive when it suited him."

"Well, most can."

I wasn't sure really why I said it—except that is a lie, of course, I knew exactly why and it was for this very reason that I was shivering when it wasn't cold, forcing myself not to look at her very long. Everyone must have known how I felt about her, it seemed. Everyone had known, everyone knew, Boq knew, Nessarose had known. I had never possessed the skill Elphaba had in masking her emotions and it was my fault that mine were so easy to see—and perhaps it was all for the best. Perhaps it was all for the best that Elphaba was intelligent and adept and clever—and wholly incapable of seeing what was right in front of her.

It hurt, of course, but it had been hurting for many, many years and this was nothing new.

We began to walk again, across a little bridge, where the midday sun had strewn itself sloppily about the prettier aspects of the landscape. Elphaba was silent and pensive; it was easy to transport myself years into the past and pretend that we were idling away the time before class, content with our lot and not at all shrewd with silly maturation.

I told her about Dorothy, I told her about the shoes, I told her to calm down and get over it, they were just shoes, really. Had I known that it would have upset her so completely, I never would have handed them along to Dorothy, of course; Elphaba was fraught with the anxiety and paranoia I had always loved her in spite of—or for, perhaps.

A part of me was glad, though, said it was good that I'd given them to Dorothy, it was good that Elphaba didn't have them. A part of me thought it was fitting that she should desperately want something she could not have because I had been doing it for years.

But another part of me was sorry for it. I watched her during the memorial service and was sorry. And as she left Colwen Grounds a few days later, looking worn and ashen, I was so very sorry that I choked out, "Oh Elphie!"

And she didn't turn, and that made me the sorriest of all, for we never did see each other again.

**End**


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